Visiting the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, as the memorial sets it out

How a visit works

The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site is free to enter and needs no prior appointment. For the Visitors' Center, exhibitions and grounds, its opening-hours page says the memorial "is open to visitors daily from 9 am to 5 pm" and "is closed on December 24th", with "closure of the former crematorium area at 4:30 pm".[4] A visitor can explore on their own, with an audio guide or the memorial's printed tour brochure, or join one of its daily guided tours.[6][11][7] The memorial's own planning answer is that most visitors need half a day for the grounds and exhibitions.[5]

The memorial asks to be visited as what it is. Its guidelines describe it as a commemorative site for the people who suffered in the Dachau concentration camp and the prisoners who died there, with "the character of a cemetery, a place of sorrow and remembrance".[8]

What the memorial is, in its own words

On 22 March 1933, a few weeks after Hitler became Reich Chancellor, the Nazi regime opened a concentration camp on the grounds of a disused gunpowder and munitions factory in Dachau.[2] The memorial's home page describes the camp as a model for all later concentration camps and a "school of violence" for the SS men who ran it.[1] Its history page says more than 200,000 prisoners from over 40 nations were held in the camp and its subcamps, and that at least 41,500 people died there of hunger and illness, from torture, by murder, or from the consequences of their imprisonment.[2] U.S. Army units liberated the prisoners on 29 April 1945.[2]

The memorial's pages phrase the death toll in slightly different ways: "41.500 were murdered" on the home page, "the 41,500 prisoners who died there" in the guidelines, "more than 41,500" in the FAQ.[5][8][1] This guide uses the history page's wording, "at least 41,500", because it is the one that says how they died.[2]

The memorial itself was created at the survivors' initiative. According to its history page, survivors who had joined together in 1955 as the Comité International de Dachau made it possible to turn the former prisoners' camp into a place of commemoration, and the memorial with a documentary exhibition opened in May 1965. In 2003 the Bavarian state government handed responsibility for the Dachau and Flossenbürg memorials to the newly founded Stiftung Bayerische Gedenkstätten, the Bavarian Memorial Foundation, whose task is to maintain and develop them as international places of learning and remembrance.[2] The foundation is a foundation under public law, the memorial's imprint says.[15]

Where it is

The memorial is in the town of Dachau, at Alte Römerstraße 75, 85221 Dachau, in the part of town called Dachau-Ost.[14][1] It is not in Munich. XTOUR lists Munich as a starting point for it, not as the place that contains it, because the memorial's own directions page describes the trip from Munich: the S2 suburban train to Dachau station, then bus 726 to the stop "KZ-Gedenkstätte". It recommends public transport because parking is limited and charged.[14] XTOUR does not publish journey times.

Dachau also has a palace, Schloss Dachau, which the Bavarian Palace Administration runs at Schlossstraße 7.[16] It is a separate place with a separate history and has nothing to do with the memorial's visit.

Guided tours, audio guides and the film

Guided tours for individual visitors. The memorial's education department runs tours through the grounds of the former camp, the historical buildings and parts of the permanent exhibition, aimed at a basic knowledge of the camp and the memorial and at the question of what this history has to do with us today.[6] The tour page lists the start times as "English: 11 a.m., 1 p.m. (daily)" and "German: 12 p.m. (daily)", gives a length of two and a half hours, and limits each tour to 30 people. Tickets are bought at the information desk of the Visitors' Center at least 45 minutes before the start, and the page says that reservations are not possible. Groups are asked to book separately and in advance.[6]

Licensed guides only. The memorial says only guides licensed by its education department may give tours on the grounds, and that it may stop unlicensed persons from conducting them.[8] Its page of other providers advises checking that an external guide is licensed before booking, and lists organisations that employ licensed guides, among them the City of Dachau's tourist information and the City of Munich's tourism department.[12]

Audio guides. Rented at the Visitors' Center by the entrance, the audio guide comes with a map and includes accounts by historical witnesses; the page lists 18 languages and says a deposit must be left while it is in use. It is provided by Linon Medien KG, which takes reservations from groups of more than 10.[7]

The film and the exhibitions. The documentary "The Dachau Concentration Camp" (2021, 38 minutes) is shown in the auditorium in the former maintenance building at set times in German and English, and in French, Italian and Spanish on request; the auditorium takes no reservations.[9] The main exhibition in the same building follows the "path of the prisoners", from arrival in the camp through life there to death or liberation, across 13 rooms and areas, and ends in a Memorial Room; its texts and those outside are in German and English. There are further exhibitions in the former camp prison, a barracks and the former crematorium.[10] Since 2005 visitors have entered the grounds through the Jourhaus, the former gate to the prisoners' camp.[3]

Rules of conduct

The memorial's guidelines set out what it asks of visitors, and its staff are authorised to enforce them.[8] Among them:

• Respect the dignity of the site with appropriate attire, and do not touch camp relics or exhibits.[8]
• Do not disturb the peace of the dead, wear clothing or symbols associated with right-wing extremist groups, or violate anyone's dignity because of their origin, skin colour or religion.[8]
• On the former camp grounds, do not smoke, eat or drink alcohol, bring vehicles, carry flags or banners, use loudspeakers, or record and reproduce the content of guided tours.[8]
• Dogs are not permitted anywhere on the grounds, except guide and assistance dogs.[8]

The guidelines also note that, because of historic-preservation law, some buildings and parts of the grounds are inaccessible to wheelchair users, and ask visitors who need help to contact staff at the Visitors' Center or in the exhibition. The memorial reserves the right to refuse admission to people and organisations that make anti-democratic, racist or antisemitic statements.[8]

Children and age: the memorial's pages differ

The memorial's pages agree on the threshold for its educational programmes, though not quite on the wording: the opening-hours and tour pages say they are for visitors "over the age of 13",[6][4] the FAQ says "aged 13 and above".[5] They do not give one age for visiting at all. The guidelines advise that children under 12 should not visit the exhibitions, the grounds or the former crematorium.[8] The FAQ says some content may not be appropriate for children under 13 and recommends that children visit only with their parents.[5] The film page gives a recommended minimum age of 13 for visiting the memorial.[9] XTOUR repeats the three statements as the memorial makes them and does not add advice of its own.

For groups, the memorial's preparation page asks teachers to prepare participants historically and emotionally, and to allow enough time, saying that in general a visit of less than two and a half hours is unproductive; it adds that a visit by people suffering from trauma can be recommended only with great care or special support. It also describes the memorial as much visited and suggests that groups, where possible, come in the afternoon and outside the months of March to July.[13]

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR does not publish journey times, accessibility details beyond the memorial's own statement, or how busy the site is on a given day, and it does not sell tours of the memorial. XTOUR has not verified opening times beyond what the memorial's pages said on 9 October 2026, and those pages are the reference for any change. The way German memorial sites state their own conduct rules is compared in memorial-site conduct in Germany, as the sites state it.